


And The Glory Fades

by whimsicality



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And people should stop forgetting that, Gen, He's a sneaky stubborn little shit, It's right there in the movie, Steve Feels, Steve is not a perfect soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 16:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1476448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicality/pseuds/whimsicality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because the thing you have to understand about Steve, is that he is not, in fact, a good soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And The Glory Fades

**Author's Note:**

> My response to one too many fics about Steve that manage to miss the point entirely. Minor spoilers for Winter Soldier, like, seriously tiny.

People like to talk about Steve. Pundits, politicians, historians, psychologists, kids who grew up with his comics only to have the real Captain America jump back into the spotlight and help save the world. They tell stories about him on talk shows and the history channel, analyze his exploits on the news, and speculate about every personal detail they can get their hands on in tabloids and gossip sites.

A lot of words are thrown around: America's true son, the perfect soldier, the hero least likely to go off the rails or against orders and put the US in danger. Unlike his less predictable teammates is the usual implication.

All the talking heads tend to gloss over the fact that his most iconic missions -- saving Bucky, saving the world, waking up only to help save it again, shooting three helicarriers full of nothing but orders out of the sky -- were all done expressly against orders or with the neat sidestep of having forgone asking permission in the first place.

Because the thing you have to understand about Steve, is that he is not, in fact, a good soldier. He is the worst kind of soldier. The kind of soldier who disobeys orders and sneaks behind enemy lines and breaks every rule in the book and some that haven't made it in the book yet because orders aren't about people and Steve? Steve has always been about people. His people. His mom and Bucky and later Peggy and the Commandos and now in the future other names are being added to the list.

And when they slapped the label of Captain America on him without so much as by your leave they made all of the people in America his people. And the things Steve will do for those he considers under his protection... well, the legends are only the tip of the iceberg and they're enough to make most anyone take a step back and think hard about the decision to harm any of those people. The ones who don't are quick to learn their mistake.

Steve is not a soldier, or rather not _just_ a soldier, and he will never obey an order that will cause harm to one of his own.

He's a hero, and that's a different kind of creature entirely.


End file.
